Sample Wine Pairings to Try

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It really is worth the time and trouble to look for a nearby restaurant that offers wine-food pairings. It's not just a delicious way to spend a night, but also an opportunity to gather mouth-watering wine-food pairing ideas to try at home.

Books have been written with extensive lists of "perfect" pairings. But there are so many variables in each pairing -- the sauces, the spices and personal taste among them -- that it's impossible to know what will work best.

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Just about every day, we receive a letter from someone asking us what wine will go with a certain dish. Books have been written with extensive lists of “perfect” pairings. But there are so many variables in each pairing — the sauces, the spices and personal taste among them — that it’s impossible to know what will work best. What’s fun is trying.

More restaurants are showing the way. It’s hard to believe now that the whole idea of a tasting menu was foreign in the U.S. not too long ago. And the idea of pairing each dish of a tasting menu with a wine was even more obscure. Just a few years ago, when we went into some of America’s finest restaurants and asked the sommelier to pair each of our courses with a wine, we were often met with quizzical looks. Now, tasting menus with wine pairings are common, not just at great restaurants like the French Laundry and Charlie Trotter’s, but even at many less-formal, local places. And while not all of them are successful — we’ve had some pairings that seemed more driven by what bottles happened to be open than by complementary tastes — they’re always worth a try to see how the professionals try to make food and wine dance together.

Maintaining Standards

We have been visiting Disney World since 1974 and have seen its attention to wine soar. That has leveled off in the past few years — the wine lists are not nearly as dynamic as they once were and the prices on everyday wines continue to be outrageously high — but Victoria & Albert’s, in the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, continues to be a great destination for a marriage of wine and food.

We made reservations six months in advance for the chef’s table and, by total accident, happened to be there on Father’s Day, which was a treat for John. Our wine-pairing dinner there ($165 per person, plus $75 per person for the wine pairing) is a good demonstration of how the experts try to pair things. After we returned home, we called the man in charge of Victoria & Albert’s, Israel Pérez, who handles the wine-pairing personally, to ask him about it. “Food comes first,” said Mr. Pérez, who has worked in Disney World restaurants, including the California Grill and Artist Point, for 19 years. “I’m not going to dictate to the chef [Scott Hunnel] what he’s going to make. Whatever he wants to put on the menu, he makes and I try to identify some of the main flavor profiles in the dish to make the pairings. A little bit of wine pairing is from experience, but sometimes a particular sauce comes into play so I may have to change my own mind.” How does this play out? Here’s our dinner and how Mr. Pérez chose the wines.

Amuse-bouche (vegetable ratatouille ravioli, hazelnut-butternut squash cream, lobster en crêpe with vanilla aïoli), with Heidsieck & Co. Monopole “Blue Top” Champagne from France. “I normally like to start with Champagne because it has a multitude of things it can go with and it’s an exciting way to start the meal,” Mr. Pérez said.

Buffalo tenderloin with braised fennel, radishes and satsuma tangerine vinaigrette, with 2005 Twisted Oak Roussanne/Marsanne from California. “The buffalo course had the smoky buffalo pieces, then two sauces, one made with tangerines that gave it a citrus influence and then the vinaigrette, which added acidity to the dish. Then chunks of blood oranges. My thinking was if I’m going to pair the buffalo by itself, a Syrah from the Walla Walla region of Washington would be good. But in this dish at the beginning of the meal I didn’t want to go really intense, so I found this wine from Rhône varietals. This wine has some citrus tones and a little bit of oakiness that pulls together the smoky flavors of the buffalo. Verdejo from Spain has some of the citrus quality and some of the wines from Campania [in Italy] have some citrus qualities, so there are different choices that could be made.”

Copper River king salmon with bamboo rice blend and coconut broth, with 2003 Trimbach Gewürztraminer from Alsace. “Salmon by itself I might pair with a Pinot Noir, but once you pair it with a sauce with coconut broth with an Asian influence, I knew it might overpower Pinot, so I thought with those Asian influences a Gewürztraminer would be good, especially one from Alsace because there’s a little spice to it that goes along with the Asian components of the dish.”

Pondicherry peppered quail with a four-grain pancake, Georgia peaches and corn, with 2002 Dr. Thanisch Graacher-Himmelreich Riesling Spätlese from Germany. “The quail came with a pancake and with peaches that gave a little bit of sweetness to it and pondichery pepper, so there was some spiciness. I thought I wanted to try a Riesling. Sometimes Rieslings have that peachy component. It also could have gone with a Gewürztraminer, which can go a little sweet. It’s always a playful game with the chemistry [of the food] and the wine. Pinot Noir comes to mind for many different selections. If I have duck or even quail, Pinot comes to mind, but I have to get to the sauce.”

New Zealand elk with elephant garlic spaetzle and turnip kraut, with 2005 Navarro Correas Malbec from Argentina. “When I thought about elk I thought about Malbec right away. If you have something a little gamy, Malbec goes well with that component. I wanted to brighten it up a little bit, so I put the Malbec to go with it. Then I tried the elk and it wasn’t gamy at all, it was tender and lovely, but the wine still worked.”

Pan-roasted foie gras and Fuji apple tart with mostarda di cremona, with 2000 Royal Tokaji Aszú, 5 puttonyos, from Hungary. “Sauternes is always the first choice with foie gras, but the Tokaji matches the intensity of the foie gras. And the foie gras is made with apple and that requires something intense. The Tokaji has a nice layer of acidity so it balances it at the end. So you have the rich, robust, sweet wine with a nice layer of acidity that pulled the dish together.”

Japanese Wagyu and Australian Kobe beef tenderloin with oxtail jus, with 2003 Château Cantemerle from France. “The Kobe has some fat content, so I went with a Bordeaux. I wanted a wine that’s easily recognized by wine connoisseurs. This is a fifth growth that goes all the way back to the eleven-hundreds. The wine is robust and had to be opened a couple of hours to be balanced.”

Cheese with Cockburn’s 10-years-old Tawny Porto. “Multiple things can go along with cheeses. Sometimes a nice Pinot can go with the cheese. Some cheeses are nutty and can take sherry. Since there were three cheeses on the plate, I thought a 10-year-old tawny would be a good balance with the intensity of the cheeses.”

So how did it all work? Beautifully, we’re happy to say. The Champagne was a perfectly mouth-watering beginning and the Twisted Oak, though white, was so big that it easily stood up to the buffalo. The salmon-Gewürz pairing really didn’t do much for us — it was terrific salmon and we always like the Trimbach, but we didn’t think they spoke to each other very intimately. The Malbec was indeed perfect with the elk, and the beef course really did require a Bordeaux (though, if we were home, we probably would have broken out something older and even more special with such spectacular meat). The clarity and structure of the Bordeaux acted much like a delicious cleansing agent after a mouthful of luxuriously fatty beef.

A Match Made in Heaven

The foie gras course was interesting. As Mr. Pérez said, foie gras and Sauternes is one of those classic wine-food pairings, but we’ve never much liked them together. The Tokaji and foie gras, however, really was a match made in heaven, with the somewhat dark, rich, earthy Tokaji playing perfectly off the sweet, earthy richness of the foie gras.

The best and most surprising pairing of the night was the Spätlese with the quail. This is the match that had us thinking about Dottie’s duck. We would have thought Pinot Noir would be perfect with the quail but, in any case, wouldn’t have thought about a slightly sweet Riesling. In fact, they seemed to have been made for each other, with the sweet earthiness and great acidity of the wine pairing perfectly with the dark earthiness of the dish.

It really is worth the time and trouble to look for a nearby restaurant that offers wine-food pairings. Some do this every night, while some others have special events on a regular basis (good wine stores often know about these). It’s not just a delicious way to spend a night, but also an opportunity to gather mouth-watering wine-food pairing ideas to try at home.

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Additional Resources:

There are thousands of opinions on what food should be served with what wine. Keep in mind that any pairing is a highly personal suggestion and that the most important pairing advice is that if it tastes good to you, then it's a good match. We prefer to use books for quick reference, but there are some good Web sites that you should bookmark, too.

About The Authors

Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher write "Tastings," the weekly wine column of The Wall Street Journal. They also are the authors of "Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion," "Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage" and "The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine." A complete revision of that book, called "The New and Improved Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine," was published in September 2002.

Ms. Gaiter and Mr. Brecher have been married since 1979. Ms. Gaiter was a national reporter and editor covering issues of race for the Journal from 1990 to 2000. Mr. Brecher was Page One Editor of the Journal from 1992 to 2000. They began writing "Tastings" in 1998 and became full-time wine columnists in 2000.